How to Write Twitter Bots

A twitterbot workshop using Tracery and CheapBotsDoneQuick

Overview

Look at some twitter bots, understand how they work
Learn Tracery, a simple method of Mad Libs-style text generation
Make our own generators using Tracery
Learn how to use Cheap Bots Done Quick, a beginner-friendly platform for hosting twitter bots
Turn our generators into real functioning bots

Let's look at some twitter bots

@TwoHeadlines by Darius Kazemi @FellasBot by Darius Kazemi @the_ephemerides by Allison Parrish @thinkpiecebot by Nora Reed @thielspotting by Todd Anderson @autoflaneur @MagicRealismBot by Chris Rodley @bot_teleport @softlandscapes by George Buckenham @thetinygallery

Tracery

Tracery is a text generation library created by Kate Compton. It's basically a big list of lists and templates you use to generate text in a Mad Libs-style, where certain parts of a sentence are selected at random from a larger group.

Online Tracery Editor
Lets looks at some of the JSON files included in this repo and plug them in!

Time to try making our own. Break into groups and come up with an idea for your generator. Good bots have a simple narrow theme that is then expanded on to have a lot of possibility.

Start with a recent news headline, a fun meme, or a subject you're interested.
Make a starter template sentence
Make lists of things that could be swapped out
Generate!

Cheap Bots, Done Quick

Cheap Bots Done Quick is a fantastic twitterbot hosting platform by George Buckenham that lets you turn any Tracery generator into a Twitter bot. Here's all you need to do:

Create a new twitter account
Log in to Cheap Bots Done Quick with your new twitter account
Paste in the grammar from your tracery generator
Test to make sure it works
Set how often you want to tweet
Go back into the twitter account and make a nice profile and banner image and description (let people know it's a bot)
Done!

Going Further

Tracery can be used in any javascript project, including with p5, to make generative websites and games. Visit the github repo for more on how to use it. Check out Interruption Junction as something a little different using Tracery.